A few years ago, I decided I needed a code to live by: a set of principles to guide my life. Now, it’s not as if I hadn’t already discovered some principles that seemed right to me; it wasn’t as if I was flying blind, without any convictions. But I had never sat down and reflected on exactly what my “code” consisted in, and put it all on paper. So, I decided one day to do just that.

In the virtue known as Amor, the particular personhood of the beloved is central—just as, in true spiritual realization, God is not an abstraction or an insubstantial wraith, but the most concrete Reality imaginable, one that is also (like the ultimate depths of any true person) infinitely beyond anything we can imagine. From the worldly point of view, love for particular persons is seen as mere bourgeois sentimentalism, Read more …

A story is told (whether from the Zen tradition, the Bushidō tradition, or modern Japanese cinema I don’t remember) of an encounter between a Samurai warrior and a Zen monk. The warrior approaches the sitting monk and draws his sword. The monk remains impassive. “Don’t you realize that I have no qualms about killing you?” roars the warrior. “Don’t you realize that I have no qualms about dying?” quietly replies the monk. Read more …